MHP leader calls on Turkish president to veto judiciary bill

ANKARA

'President Gül should use his authority and make a move on behalf of the nation,' MHP leader Bahçeli said. AA photo

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli has reiterated his call for President Abdullah Gül to veto the controversial bill to change the Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK).

The new legal arrangements would boost government control over Turkey’s top judicial body, particularly strengthening the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) say in the appointment of judges and prosecutors.

“President Gül should use his authority and make a move on behalf of the nation,” Bahçeli said yesterday during his weekly parliamentary speech. “Otherwise, the prime minister will take the seat as a judge and go further. The prime minister is destroying the judiciary.”

In the same speech, Bahçeli accused Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of trying to hide corruption and protecting the perpetrators, saying Erdoğan was “drowning in corruption.”

The MHP leader also touched on Turkey’s economic situation, saying the country was in the middle of an economic decline and highlighting the increasing unemployment rate.

“Kemal from Şırnak, Ayşe from Trabzon, Ahmet from Van and Ali from Sinop are suffering from unemployment because their names are not Bilal or Sümeyye [the names of the prime minister’s son and daughter]. They don’t have shoe boxes, they don’t even have shoes,” Bahçeli said.

He also commented on the attack claims made by a headscarved woman in Istanbul’s Kabataş neighborhood during the Gezi protests, following the release of a video which includes no evidence of an attack in the way previously described by the alleged victim. The MHP is against making women into a target, whether or not they wear headscarves, Bahçeli underlined, asking whether Erdoğan would apologize now that the truth has come out.